If it doesn't happen here, it never happened

I was once part of a small coterie of laws students that had lunch with Scalia. At that lunch he proudly and loudly proclaimed he didn't give a rat's ass about international law (not a quote but an accurate summary). If American law isn't about giving the home field advantage to Americans in many conservative judicial ideology then it's almost as bad as corporations not being "people" under the law -- and better people than anyone else for sure.

Cannot blame the Iraqis for their disgust, and glad Odierno joins them, although I guess he cannot be the kind of general that's a hero now to the right.

"The Iraqi government regrets and is disappointed by the U.S. court's decision ... We have our own investigations and they showed that Blackwater committed a serious crime in the killing of 17 Iraqi citizens," Dabbagh said...

After the 2003 invasion, private guards protecting U.S. personnel enjoyed immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, but that ended with a bilateral pact that took effect in 2009.

The five guards were charged in a U.S. federal court a year ago with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count.

On Thursday, a U.S. district judge threw out the case, saying prosecutors had wrongly used statements the guards made to State Department investigators under a threat of job loss in violation of defendants' constitutional rights.

General Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, echoed the Iraqi government's displeasure.

"Of course we're upset when we believe that people might have caused a crime and they are not held accountable," he told reporters in Baghdad, adding the dismissal might create a backlash against other security firms operating in Iraq.

Two things, if an American criminal got off on such a technicality the right-wing would be going apeshit and saying it's all because Obama hates the America he was not really born in. But some tools of a company with big GOP donations who first made it big through the Bush Administration's largess and not a goddamned peep.